Broken, Broken

 It's been a long six days.  There's the whole holiday weekend thing.  But there's also been some unexpected mentally exhausting things (not that the holiday and social gatherings aren't all ready mentally exhausting enough for me).

Last week, during the heat wave we had, DH and DD1 decided to go up north and go canoeing/kayaking with her two oldest (Faline and Buck) as well as DS1's two oldest (K3 and Toad). It was going to be a head up north one evening, spend the night at the family cabin, go float the next morning/part of the afternoon the next day, possibly spend another night depending on a number of factors, and then head home kind of trip.  DH wanted, since our truck is a 6-passenger kind, for all of them to ride together in one vehicle rather than taking two vehicles on a 400 mile round trip journey.  In terms of expense, it would cut fuel costs roughly in half.

Luckily, logistics (and DD1) prevailed, and she drove herself and her kids separately from DH, K3 and Toad.  This not only gave them a second vehicle to run the shuttle from put-in to take-out on the river with, but it avoided having three kids (two in car seats) crammed together in the backseat, with two overly large adults and a fourth kid (the unlucky skinniest teen/preteen) crammed together in the front seat for 200 miles of hot humid driving (even with air conditioning going) each way.  Not to mention gave them room to keep their clothing and bedding bags inside the vehicle rather than putting all baggage in the open bed of the truck and hoping they didn't encounter pop-up thunderstorms to get everything wet along the way.

Well, they didn't encounter any thunderstorms on the way there (they did almost immediately after getting off the river and loading boats onto the trailer the following day).  However, DH, along with K3 and Toad encountered a deer when they were about 45 minutes short of their destination the first night.

I got a phone call from DH about the time I expected him to be calling me with the "We're here" phone call he usually tries to give me when he's traveling without me, so that I know he's at his destination safely.  Instead of hearing "we're here" though, what he said to me was "We hit a deer."

OH F---!

The world came to a screeching halt.  My gut fell through the soles of my feet.  The pre-sunset daylight went black.

"We're all okay." Was the next thing he said.

The sun shone again, if not quite as bright as it had five seconds before.  My gut rose somewhere around my kneecaps.  Because I was expecting the next statement I heard to be "Get in my (company) truck and come get us please."  I knew that DD1 had left a few hours earlier than he had; they weren't caravaning, so wasn't there at the scene with him and the older two grandkids.  Plus, hers is only a five passenger vehicle.

Instead, I heard "The airbags went off, the side ones, I cut them off so we can see, the truck seems to be fine mechanically, and we're on our way again.  I called 911 but all the cops are busy elsewhere*, so they said it was okay to continue on and we'll do the police report in the morning."

*there aren't a whole lot of police officers in that rural part of northern Michigan, so it's not surprising that there wasn't one available to do a non-injury non-wrecked vehicle deer hit accident report.  Probably busy with other, more serious deer/car accidents, honestly.

The deer had hit them near the passenger side front tire, dented both the doors on the passenger side, as well as cracked the passenger side headlight area, and dented the fender too.  So, after describing to me the damage that DH had seen, he said aloud the thought that was in my head (which made my gut hit the ground again):

"The insurance company is probably going to total it, even though it looks like all somewhat minor cosmetic damage.  Because the airbags went off.  I think that's the policy these days; if the airbags deploy, the vehicle is too expensive to fix so they total it." 

For the record, it's a 2017 truck, we've been the only owners, and it has only about 85,000 miles on it.  It's in great condition--other than the current deer fiasco.  We were not looking to replace it (and have a vehicle loan in roughly the $900-$1k a month range) in the next several years.  

So that was one night last week.  The next day, I noticed that the blower on our (gas) water heater didn't seem to be shutting off even though I was using zero hot water all day.  With just me home, and not doing any laundry or running the dishwasher (or taking a shower, yet), there was no reason for the water heater to need to be firing and heating water constantly.  Weird.  I checked all that I knew to check on it, and couldn't find a reason.  

DH called shortly after that and said that they weren't staying another night, they'd finished canoeing/kayaking and gotten off the river, K3 and Toad were heading home in DD1's vehicle with her and her kids, and that he was headed over to the police station in the county where the deer had hit them the night before in order for the cop to look at the vehicle and file the accident report, then he would be heading home.  

Rather than burden him with my suspicion about something being wrong with the water heater--not only was the blower going constantly, there was absolutely no hot water (I'd checked)--I decided to just tell him about it when he got home.  I'd let him think about the truck and the police report and the insurance claim process on his drive and not further distract him with water heater issues.

But I did tell him about it within the first fifteen minutes he was home.  He checked all the same things I'd checked (proof that I'm not inept at home maintainence things):

• Getting air?  Seems to be.  Blower/fan has been running continuously afterall.
• Got spark?  Yep, can see the 'glowplugs' (not an open flame pilot light system) light up. 
• Got fuel?  Well, we have a recently filled propane tank outside, and the whole system had been checked (and pressure tested) by the fuel company just the day before.  (Hmmm, something in relation to that testing????)  Not to mention that both the (gas) dryer and the (gas) cooktop worked fine.

 and declared that we would have to call a plumber in the morning as it was all ready after business hours that day.

Which lead to the discussion that it is the original water heater to the house, circa 2003.  And, because it is dual chambered and supports both domestic hot water and our hydronic radiant heat system, (and 75 gallon capacity) was a damn expensive unit 23 years ago. Something like three thousand 2003 dollars. Also had to wait 3 weeks for it to come in after we ordered it, as they weren't a commonly stocked item at that time.  If it's dead and we have to replace it, because 23 years is way past the life expectancy of a water heater, how much is a similar one going to cost in 2026 and how available are they?

Ugh.  More money outlay in the near future.  Plus, we had cold showers that night and I had to heat water on the stove to hand-wash dishes with as the dishwasher wasn't going to get them clean and sanitary running only cold water.

Called a local (privately owned) plumbing company in the morning.  They could send someone out around 2 p.m. that afternoon to look at our water heater.

Except, DH had a 2 p.m. appointment with the Chevy dealer body shop to get an estimate on damage to our pick up for the insurance company, and I had an appointment at exactly that same time that had been made three weeks ago and I would definitely get a no-show fee if I canceled it only 5 hours before hand. Plus who knows how many more weeks out it would get rescheduled for?

So he told the plumber that wouldn't work, when was the next time slot they had?  It would be the following morning, and well, we could use the stove to heat whatever hot water we needed in the meantime, so not a life or death thing. He took that next time slot.  Partly because we'd rather support the little guy in our hometown than call the several other (corporately owned) plumbers around and see if they could come before 1:00 or after 3:30 that same day.

When the plumber(s)--two twenty-something guys early in their plumbing careers--came the next day and took a look at our water heater, they both were scratching their heads.  Ours was the oldest water heater they'd ever seen; possibly made in the same year they were, LOL.  But they bravely tried their best to diagnose the issue, then called in their boss (the company owner) to come have a look because they were stumped.

He checked everything they did, and narrowed down the issue to the most likely to be malfunctioning part based on his observations.  Then he proceeded to take that part off, take it apart, clean it off, stick in back together, put it back on the water heater, and voila!  The water heater worked immediately!

PHEW!  A $300 plumbing call is so much preferrable to who knows how many thousands of dollars for a new water heater.  Although I did joke to DH later that he should have asked for a discount, since it turned out to be an educational experience for the two young plumbers, and when the horse vet brings vet students out and the students work on your horse you usually get a discount on the service provided.

Turned out there was debris clogging the fuel line on the water heater.  Most likely related to the pressure testing done by the gas company as that day was the last day I know the water heater was working properly and I had hot water when I turned on the taps.  But kind of hard to prove three days later when the plumber found--and cleared--the clog.

Meanwhile. . . got the repair estimate from the dealer collision center.  It's a lot.  A few hundred over $15k.  That's the total on the list they gave DH of parts needing replacing.  Some parts on the list he is questioning as it was a side impact, not frontal, and the front/dash airbags were not deployed, so no damage to the dash or instrumentation there. . . 

This morning, he got a call from the insurance company; they had received an estimate too from that same dealer collision center.  And because the estimate sent to them was $16,800+, it exceeds the insurance company's repair threshhold of $15,800 for this particular vehicle, so therefore they have declared our truck totaled.

But wait a minute!  Did you notice the discrepancy between the written estimate given to DH and the estimate by the same collision center sent to the insurance company?  Yeah.  DH did too.  He mentioned this to the insurance person on the phone.  They are as confused by the differing amounts as we are, and have requested DH email them a copy of the estimate he was given.  There will be some comparison going on.  

Maybe the truck is not totaled afterall.  We wait in suspense, and possibly will be taking the truck to a different place to have a second estimate done. . . 

Partly because a $500 insurance deductible bill and a fully repaired truck is much better than truck shopping and signing on for a (near) $1k a month auto loan payment right now.  But mostly because those two estimates from the same place don't match and that's kinda hinky.  Not saying there's attempted fraud going on, but what other explanation is there?  Inquiring minds want to know.